Agile Musings

Start an embedded YouTube video at a certain timestamp

2011-12-09T08:56:00.001-07:00

From http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/start-youtube-video-minutes-seconds/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tMuSVVljg8#t=17m08s

The “#t=17m08s” takes you to 17 minutes and 8 seconds in a video.

Embedded code.

<object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8tMuSVVljg8&hl=en_US&start=1028"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8tMuSVVljg8&hl=en_US&start=1028" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

See here for the example working.

Easy and Free Screen Sharing

2011-12-02T15:42:00.001-07:00

I have used other screen sharing software before. Join.Me is easy and secure.

Who ever wants to share their screen goes to Join.Me and clicks share. A program is downloaded. I don't think it requires admin permission to install. A little window at the top appears with three numbers separated by dashes.

To view the screen the sharer tells the viewer these numbers. The viewer types it into the join box and you are done.

Reducing Sleeping Dragons

2011-04-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I added a column to a SQL table DateCreated. I wanted to track when the records were getting created. I provided a value for the existing columns and then made it not nullable and provided getdate() as its default. I have done this quite often in the past and in the other frameworks I was in it never was a problem.

This time it was. I had made other changes to the database the project used. I updated the edmx file for the data access layer so it would refresh my object model for my code. I did not pay close enough attention to the fact that it now added code to account for the new DateCreated column.

Yesterday we got an error. When looking at the SQL trace I saw that Entity Framework was passing in a '0001-01-01 00:00:00' for the date value because the code giving the values was not providing it a value. I was counting on the app (including the data layer) to not provide a value. The database definition would provide getdate().

Entity Framework did only half the job that needed doing. The presentation layer, or service layer or business layer should have been updated to provide a value if the data layer gets updated with the DateCreated column.

I am glad that we are getting away from using ORM solutions. We are instead relying on lightweight utilities to create a data layer using only ADO.NET. My colleague, Sam started this with LOEF. He is now developing NOEF (No Entity Framwork perhaps with a better name). This will reduce the sleeping dragons we have to deal with.

OpenDNS Internet Filtering

2010-12-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

We have been using OpenDNS for several months to protect our home computer network from pornography. We had been using BSecure but it did not have an easy way to protect our whole network, and it sometimes caused problems on the computers we installed it on. OpenDNS can be configured on your router and so there is no need to install or configure anything on any device connected to your router.

See a previous post for more info.

The Way Things Go + The Case Against Teaching

2010-11-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

Change Firefox awesome bar search engine

2010-10-27T09:08:00.001-07:00

I have gotten used to just typing in whatever in the Google Chrome omnibar to search. I also use Firefox, and the awesome bar does not work the same by default. Change Firefox awesome bar search engine at cnet shows how to change it.

- Go to "about:config" in firefox
- Double click on the keyword.URL setting. Save the setting in case you want to go back. Mine was "http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q="
- Change it to the value you want I changed mine to "http://www.google.com/search?q="

That changed it so it uses the vanilla settings of Google.

UPDATE 2011-01-12: This does not seem to work any more.

Visual Studio Formatting Settings

2010-09-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of formatting settings that I like in Visual Studio.

Place open brace on new line for functions and control blocks
In Visual Studio, click Tools -> Options. In the Options dialog on the left pane select Text editor -> JScript -> Formatting
See here for a picture.

Tight internal cohesion and Loose external coupling

2010-06-24T15:12:00.002-07:00

This basically means that each method in a class should have one task and the class as a whole should have one major responsibility (tight internal cohesion) and that other classes should not depend on the inner workings of this class but should be designed to the "interface" of the class (loose external coupling).

Alan Shalloway from http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?CouplingAndCohesion

Attaching debugger to w3wp.exe using nice and easy keyboard shortcut

2010-05-27T11:27:00.001-07:00

Attaching debugger to w3wp.exe using nice and easy keyboard shortcut

I followed this article to have a much faster way to start debugging in VS 2010.

PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010

2010-05-17T11:47:00.003-07:00

PowerCommands adds new items to the context menu when you are in the solution explorer like opening a command prompt for the directory of the file or folder you are in. You also get the "Transform Templates" context menu for folders with .tt file in them

PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010

Add it by going to Tools\Extension Manger and search for PowerCommands

Numbers are Beautiful

2010-05-10T14:43:00.002-07:00

"A short movie inspired on numbers, geometry and nature"
http://www.etereaestudios.com/

Enable AHCI Hard Drive

2010-05-05T13:34:00.003-07:00

On my machine I have enabled AHCI drives

I changed a registry setting to 0

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci\Start

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/922976?p=1

In the bios I had to enable SATA AHCI as well as SATA AHCI Legacy

Now it seems to have increased HD speed 50%.

The Great Robot Race

2010-05-01T17:09:00.001-07:00

From Nova:

Twenty-three bizarre looking vehicles line up at the gate of the DARPA Grand Challenge with one thing in common: there's nobody behind the wheel. With names like Terramax, Ghostrider, and Stanley, these vehicles are armed with cutting-edge technology.

Daylight Savings Notice

2010-04-12T14:37:00.003-07:00

Our office does not observe Daylight Savings. I wanted to display a notice on our order form to make users aware when daylight savings was changing. After spending hours not finding a way, I found code here . I added a method to it adapted from his code. I just wanted the dates daylight saving start and ends for a given TimeZone. I had already tried:

DaylightTime daylight = TimeZone.CurrentTimeZone.GetDaylightChanges(DateTime.Today.Year);

But that only gives it for the time zone of the server. I needed to get a System.Globalization.DaylightTime for a timezone that observes Daylight Saving.

  public static DaylightTime GetDaylightChanges(TimeZoneInfo InTimeZoneInfo, int InYear)
  {
   TimeZoneInfo.AdjustmentRule ruleFound = null;

   TimeZoneInfo.AdjustmentRule[] adjustments = InTimeZoneInfo.GetAdjustmentRules();
   if (adjustments.Length == 0)
   {
    throw new Exception(InTimeZoneInfo.StandardName + " has no adjustment rules");
   }
   //Find the correct adjustment rule
   foreach (TimeZoneInfo.AdjustmentRule adjustment in adjustments)
   {
    if (adjustment.DateStart.Year <= InYear && adjustment.DateEnd.Year >= InYear)
     ruleFound = adjustment;
   }
   if (ruleFound == null)
   {
    throw new Exception("No TimeZoneInfo.AdjustmentRule found for TimeZoneInfo " 
     + InTimeZoneInfo.StandardName +" for year " + InYear);
   }

   DaylightTime outDaylightTime = new DaylightTime(
       GetDateTime(InYear, ruleFound.DaylightTransitionStart)
     , GetDateTime(InYear, ruleFound.DaylightTransitionEnd)
     , ruleFound.DaylightDelta);

   return outDaylightTime;  }

Here is the usage.

TimeZoneInfo PacificTimeZone = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Pacific Standard Time");
DaylightTime daylight = CustomTimeZone.GetDaylightChanges(PacificTimeZone, 2010);
Console.WriteLine("daylight.Start = " + daylight.Start);
Console.WriteLine("daylight.End = " + daylight.End);
Console.WriteLine("daylight.Delta = " + daylight.Delta);

Setting Up Gmail and Outlook on iPod Touch

2010-01-09T15:06:00.002-07:00

On the iPod Touch, you can only set up one Exchange account. It is this kind of account Google recommends you set up to synch your contacts with the iPod. I want to be able to access both my Gmail and my work Exchange accounts on my iPod. I also want my Gmail contacts on the iPod. This is how I did it.

I created a sub folder named "Personal Contacts" to my contacts in Outlook. Following these steps I exported my Gmail contacts to a file and then imported them into "Personal Contacts". On my iPod, I set up Gmail as an IMAP account and my work email as my Exchange account.

I now have both email accounts and both sets of contacts available in my iPod.

Tabs or Spaces

2009-12-22T12:18:00.007-07:00

Some programmers have strong opinions about whether to use tabs or spaces to indent code.

This is what I use. In Visual Studio 2010 choose
Tools\Options\Text Editor\All Languages
Select Smart Indenting
Tab size and Indent size = 4
Select "Keep Tabs"

If you use Shift+Tab when in front of 4 spaces, it will delete the 4 spaces the same as if you press backspace in front of a tab character.

To convert a file one way or another there is "Tabify Selected Lines" and "Untabify Selected Lines" under the Edit\Advanced menu.

View White Space

2009-12-22T10:51:00.004-07:00

Use the following Menu in Visual Studio to view the white space characters
Edit->Advanced->View White Space
This allows you to see whether the white space is tabs or spaces.

For me these characters are too prominent. So I dim them by choosing
Tools->Options->
Environment->Fonts and Colors
Select "Visible White Space" from the Display Items.
Select Silver. Then Click the Custom Button and use the darkness scale to choose the right amount of darkness.

In Beyond Compare you can select the following from the View menu:
Show White Space
Ignore Unimportant Differences

They are useful when dealing with differences in white space.

Tech Support Cheat Sheet

2009-12-16T23:35:00.007-07:00

From xkcd, here is one great secret to computer tech support. Click on the picture to enlarge the flowchart.

I have written out some of the diagram so I can more easily find this post when I need it.

Google the name of the program plus a few words related to what you want to do. Follow any instructions.

Covariance and Contravariance

2009-11-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

My colleague directed me to some programming terms, covariance and contravariance.

Eric Lippert describes them quite well.

Reporting Services 2008 Custom Security

2009-11-04T11:24:00.003-07:00

In MS SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 there is no longer an easy way to allow for anonymous access. I followed the steps here to get a custom security implemented. I modified it further to integrate with our existing security model.

You could also modify it to achieve anonymous access to your report server

Exception-Driven Development

2009-10-23T15:23:00.003-07:00

One of the first things I like doing when coding is ensuring a stable error logging and notification system. I like to know about problems as soon as or sooner than my customers. And detailed logging really helps in reproducing and fixing the bug. Jeff Atwood calls this exception-driven development.

Today I found ELMAH. In a little more than an hour I implemented it in a ASP.NET app that did not have any exception handling implemented. It logs, emails and has a error log viewer. The screencast made this so easy.

Keeping my Monster Mash

2009-10-22T20:36:00.001-07:00

My wife used JibJab to create monster mashups of our family. I wanted to make sure we could keep the videos. I used CamStudio to capture the video and audio into avi files. I used MediaCoder to convert the avi to mp4 so I don't have to keep the very large avi files.

type="button"

2009-10-22T15:52:00.002-07:00

I just spent a long time figuring out a bug. Normally I use ASP.NET server controls. I have been working with a more JavaScript. I had a button HTML element on the page. I narrowed it down to the fact that the page submitted and reloaded when it was not supposed to.

After I added a type="button" to the button element, it stopped refreshing. After finding this article on StackOverflow, I have decided to use an input element specifying type="button"

Using JQuery UI Dialog with ASP.Net and AJAX Update Panel

2009-10-07T13:15:00.002-07:00

I ran into an issue using an ASP.NET UpdatePanel and the JQuery UI Dialog. I found the solution here.

When I put an update panel in the dialog, it stopped posting back to the server. It seems that JQuery moves the containing div of the dialog by appending it to the body. This puts it as the last element of the body, outside of the form element.

The fix was to use JQuery to append the dialog to the form.

How to get Javascript Intellisense in VS 2008

2009-09-23T17:10:00.006-07:00

I like to have JavaScript IntelliSense in Visual Studio. Using the ~ has not worked though. With permission of my friend, I am putting the email thread for later reference.

From: Stephen Walther
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 7:43 AM
To: Meacham, Samuel @ Tempe
Subject: RE: Javascript include problem that could easily be fixed for .NET 4.0

Hi Sam,

My favorite method of handling this issue is to use the Page.ResolveUrl method in the master page like:

<%= ResolveUrl( “~/Scripts/MyScript.js” ) %>

The ResolveUrl() method replaces the tilde ~ with the name of your application so that you can move your website without breaking the paths.

Another approach to solving this problem is to use the server ScriptManager (which also resolves the tilde ~ automatically) like this:

<asp:ScriptManager id="sm" runat="Server">

<Scripts>

<asp:ScriptReference Path="~/JScript1.js" />

</Scripts>

</asp:ScriptManager>

I agree that it is a little inconsistent that the <head runat=”server”> control resolves the tilde ~ for <link> tags but not other tags like <img> and <script>. But, you always have the option of using ResolveUrl in the <head> tag.

-- Stephen

From: Scott Guthrie
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 12:56 PM
To: Meacham, Samuel @ Tempe; Stephen Walther
Subject: RE: Javascript include problem that could easily be fixed for .NET 4.0

Stephen – any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Scott

From: Meacham, Samuel @ Tempe
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 12:40 PM
To: Scott Guthrie
Subject: Javascript include problem that could easily be fixed for .NET 4.0

Sorry for emailing directly, but the art of feature requests and suggestions, while obviously important to both producers and consumers, has always been a dark one. I’m never sure where the appropriate forum is to make sure my idea gets read.

Master pages are great, and solved a lot of problems, like making sure the same css document gets included in every page in your whole app.

Having this in the master page:

<head runat="server">

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/css/default.css" />

Renders this for a page at the app’s root:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/ErrorLoggerStyle.css" />

And this for a page in a subdirectory of the root:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../css/ErrorLoggerStyle.css" />

Basically, the magic ~ solves all your problems. This doesn’t work for <script> tags, which leaves me 3 choices:

· Absolute URLs (“http://...”)

· URLs relative to the domain root (“/css/file.css”)

· URLs relative to the current directory (“css/file.css”, no leading “/”).

Obviously, each method has it’s pros and cons. With completely absolute URLs, the files will always be found (as long as they are there), but this doesn’t work well when you have multiple deployments, such as production, staging, and development, that require different versions of js files. Relative URLs fail when you have web content pages in subdirectories that use master pages in the app’s root (all of the paths break). URLs relative to the domain root (“/css/file.css”) don’t work when you don’t (or can’t) know the name of the app virtual directory, or if it changes depending on which deployment of the site you’re using (“mydomain.com/myapp” vs “mydomain.com/myapp_dev”).

Our solution here has been to put an <asp:Literal> in the <head> element, and the master page’s Page_Load() writes all the <script> tags to that literal element at runtime, with the paths properly processed. We could probably create a UserControl that did the same thing, but the end result would be the same: No js intellisense at design time.

None of the above options are particularly appealing. Do you think it’s a possibility to have VS2010/.NET 4.0 support the ~ for <script src=”~/js/file.js”>? It would solve a lot of headaches for a lot of people…

Sam Meacham

It is nice to see such prompt response from a software development team. Here are some other helpful hints.

If you are updating the documentation of your JavaScript functions you may use the Update JScript IntelliSense command (Ctrl+Shift+J) from the Edit/Intellisense menu.

Using Javascript in a User Control can be problematic since you don't know where in the file structure it may be used. The following code will enable JavaScript Intellisense at design time. The "if (false)" will ensure it is not run in the browser.

<% if (false) { %>

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="../js/util.js"></script>

<% } %>

Delete Stuck Print Job

2009-09-07T10:42:00.002-07:00

Our printer was stuck on a print job. It would not delete. She was editing a photo and wanted to be able to undo what she was doing. Rebooting would have lost this state.

We followed the steps here. It successfully reset our print queue

"Mommy, where do ideas come from?"

2009-08-31T08:47:00.002-07:00

I just read Mommy, where do ideas come from? It was insightful. Here are a few quotes I found interesting.

Experiencing real people in their actual environments fuels our senses of empathy and intuition that helps to guide us towards the ideas that make people happy, successful (and even better looking). Plus, the research phase affords us the opportunity to be fully immersed in the users and the domain for a few weeks at the start of the project, which in addition to providing rich data and empathy, also gives our brains boot-up time to start noodling on the problem and explore possible solutions in the background.

I am particularly satisfied when a solution I have created has made someone else work easier. I makes it more real when I talked with them or interacted in some other way.

Sometimes, words are worth 1,000 pictures
The first step in our design ideation process comes before any “official” sketching is done: we describe the users’ ideal experience in words. The scenarios we develop at this stage are forward-looking and technology-agnostic, focusing on the personas and how they think, feel and behave rather than on specific interface elements or technical implementations.

I am convinced that if we invest some time in describing in words the experience we want our users to have it will pay dividends.

There’s something special about the process of sketching - even jotting down some really bad ideas helps us learn about the tensions on the problem and gets us closer to a workable solution.

I love having the large jotting paper available to us since our move to our new office.

The power of paired designing

Because we work in pairs, Cooper designers often can’t say for sure where one person’s idea ends and the other’s begins. But what we do know is that our design partners are a major source of inspiration and design ideas. We come up with ideas while we’re talking through the problem with our partners, or while listening to them talk through it with us. We piggyback on each others’ ideas, zeroing in on what’s good about our partner’s proposed solution and tweaking what’s not working, buoyed by the collective energy in the room. And just having someone there to call b.s. when we’ve gone too far off the reservation frees us up to explore novel and even downright crazy solutions that may yield useful insights or contain aspects that can be applied to a more practical design approach.

As Richard Buchanan (Emma’s grad school professor) used to say, “Ideas don’t live in your brain or my brain but in the collective space between our brains.”

I know that one of the successes of MOS was the paired designing Sam and I did.

Don’t be afraid to stare out the window

One of the benefits our designers enjoy is that we are typically assigned to only one project at a time, which means that our design problems not only get our focused attention during work hours, but also find their way into our background brain cycles outside of the office. Oftentimes, ideas come in the shower, on a run or bike ride, or while washing dishes - any time that our minds are given the freedom to wander. Even here in the studio, you’ll often see designers staring out the window, watching a ship come into port or commuter-ants scurry through the crowded streets below. Taking some quiet time for woolgathering helps to reduce stress, while also distracting the judging part of our brains. After letting our minds meander for a bit, we can often corral some of those fragmented thoughts into a useful idea.

I am amazed at the amount of inspiration and motivation I get when I am mowing the lawn, working in my garden or just walking. Maybe there is something to the physical movement. Something about a simple task that doesn't take my brain power.

Modify Your Command Prompt Settings

2009-08-26T10:47:00.002-07:00

I was just shown how to change some settings of the windows command prompt. This is what I changed.

Open your command prompt. Right click on the title bar and choose properties.

- Under the Options tab in the Edit Options section I checked QuickEdit Mode. This allows you to select text and hit enter to copy text to the clipboard.
- Under the Layout tab, I changed the Screen buffer width to 100 and the height to 500. I changed the Window width to 100 and the height to 35

When you click OK, you tell it to "save properties for future windows with the same title". If you open your command prompt from a short cut you choose "Modify shortcut that started this window".

Dependency Injection

2009-08-20T14:50:00.001-07:00

Here is a good explanation on dependency injection looking at Unity specifically.

UDF to summarize data by the week

2009-07-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

There have been a few times I wanted to summarize MS SQL Server records by the week. There is not any built in function in T-SQL that I know that does that. The code here is a simple example of how you could create a user defined function that will encapsulate this logic so you can more readably use it in a SQL query.

/*BEGIN Proof of concept script of a user defined function
This script will clean up after itself

Written by Rich Alger 2009-07-22
*/
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[MyTable]') AND type in (N'U'))
DROP TABLE [dbo].[MyTable]
GO

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[MyTable]') AND type in (N'U'))
BEGIN
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[MyTable](
[Id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[DateCreated] [datetime] NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_MyTable] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[Id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
END
GO

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[udf_WeekOf]') AND type in (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF', N'FS', N'FT'))
DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[udf_WeekOf]
GO

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[udf_WeekOf]') AND type in (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF', N'FS', N'FT'))
BEGIN
execute dbo.sp_executesql @statement = N'CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[udf_WeekOf](@InDate DATETIME)
RETURNS DATETIME
AS
/* Return the 12:00 am of Sunday before the date passed in */
BEGIN
DECLARE @DatePartOfInDate DATETIME
SET @DatePartOfInDate = CAST(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @InDate, 120) AS DATETIME)

DECLARE @WeekdayOfInDate INT
SET @WeekdayOfInDate = DATEPART(weekday, @InDate)

RETURN DATEADD(DAY, (-1 * (@WeekdayOfInDate-1) ), @DatePartOfInDate)
END
'
END
GO

INSERT INTO MyTable (DateCreated) VALUES ('2008-12-30 08:32:27')
INSERT INTO MyTable (DateCreated) VALUES ('2009-01-02 12:17:16')
INSERT INTO MyTable (DateCreated) VALUES ('2009-01-06 09:02:43')
INSERT INTO MyTable (DateCreated) VALUES ('2009-01-13 16:53:02')
INSERT INTO MyTable (DateCreated) VALUES ('2009-01-14 11:12:34')
INSERT INTO MyTable (DateCreated) VALUES ('2009-01-15 13:38:23')

SELECT
Id
,DateCreated
, dbo.udf_WeekOf(DateCreated) AS WeekOf
FROM MyTable

SELECT
COUNT(*) AS RecordInWeekOf
, dbo.udf_WeekOf(DateCreated) AS WeekOf
FROM MyTable
GROUP BY dbo.udf_WeekOf(DateCreated)

GO

/* This will drop the objects*/
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[udf_WeekOf]') AND type in (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF', N'FS', N'FT'))
DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[udf_WeekOf]
GO

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[MyTable]') AND type in (N'U'))
DROP TABLE [dbo].[MyTable]
GO

/*END Proof of concept */

The following script will only add the user defined function

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[udf_WeekOf]') AND type in (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF', N'FS', N'FT'))
DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[udf_WeekOf]
GO

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[udf_WeekOf](@InDate DATETIME)
RETURNS DATETIME
AS
/* Return the 12:00 am of Sunday before the date passed in */
BEGIN
DECLARE @DatePartOfInDate DATETIME
SET @DatePartOfInDate = CAST(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @InDate, 120) AS DATETIME)

DECLARE @WeekdayOfInDate INT
SET @WeekdayOfInDate = DATEPART(weekday, @InDate)

RETURN DATEADD(DAY, (-1 * (@WeekdayOfInDate-1) ), @DatePartOfInDate)
END

Enabling Concurrent Remote Desktop Sessions on Windows XP SP3

2009-06-11T13:45:00.001-07:00

Very useful from The Boiling Mind:

If you have multiple users on your Windows XP machine, you might have heard it is possible to patch the terminal services service, to support multiple concurrent remote desktop connection (via RDP) to your computer.
...

Telecommuting

2009-06-09T05:29:00.003-07:00

Jonathan Weber said

I firmly believe that you should expect employees to show up for work, whenever possible, no matter what kind of company.
The reasons for this have nothing to do with checking that people are actually working. It's about efficient communications, building company culture and camaraderie, and sharing the daily bits of work and personal experiences that create a shared sense of purpose.

For over 9 months, I have been telecommuting 2 days a week. 3 other people in my team have also been telecommuting 2 days a week. One other telecommutes full time.

There are things that have not been communicated, or grown in the last while for us. That being said, I do love the freedom it brings me. It allows for more time with my family. I have less driving and lots of other benefits. I have more loyalty for my employer. Why would I want to leave and not have the benefit of working from home two days? I think my employer has made a good decision by allowing us to work from home.

We have been thinking about what we can do as a group to improve our collaboration. This is much more natural when you are all sitting in the same room. Conversations start. You show each other what you are working on. Expressing frustrations are an easy open into offering assistance. Input into design and best practices are shared.

We are moving towards a more formal software development methodology. A little more structured. Three goals so far are to design in pairs, do side by side code reviews, and have quicker iterations in our cycle. I hope that by following some structured guidelines, we will foster collaboration that happened easier when we all sat next to each other 5 days a week.

The Development Abstraction Layer

2009-05-07T14:36:00.004-07:00

I just heard my manager talk about some "business stuff" I usually don't hear about. It reminded me of this story in a Joel Spolsky article.

Programmers need a Subversion repository. Getting a Subversion repository means you need a network, and a server, which has to be bought, installed, backed up, and provisioned with uninterruptible power, and that server generates a lot of heat, which means it need to be in a room with an extra air conditioner, and that air conditioner needs access to the outside of the building, which means installing an 80 pound fan unit on the wall outside the building, which makes the building owners nervous, so they need to bring their engineer around, to negotiate where the air conditioner unit will go (decision: on the outside wall, up here on the 18th floor, at the most inconvenient place possible), and the building gets their lawyers involved, because we're going to have to sign away our firstborn to be allowed to do this, and then the air conditioning installer guys show up with rigging gear that wouldn't be out of place in a Barbie play-set, which makes our construction foreman nervous, and he doesn't allow them to climb out of the 18th floor window in a Mattel harness made out of 1/2" pink plastic, I [swear] it could be Disco Barbie's belt, and somebody has to call the building agent again and see [why] they suddenly realized, 12 weeks into a construction project, that another contract amendment is going to be needed for [this] air conditioner that they knew about before Christmas and they only just figured it out, and if your programmers even spend one minute thinking about this that's one minute too many.

To the software developers on your team, this all needs to be abstracted away as typing svn commit on the command line.

That's why you have management.

I am thankful for the development abstraction layer I have at work.

Folder Filters in Beyond Compare

2009-05-07T13:28:00.002-07:00

We use subversion and ReSharper at work. Using wildcards on folder names in Beyond Compare lets me exclude the svn and ReSharper folders when comparing two working directories.

This is how my filter shows up in the text box: "-*_svn\;-*_ReSharper*\"

Pidgin: Cannot connect to Yahoo - "connection refused" error

2009-04-23T11:54:00.004-07:00

Recently my Pidgin, version 2.5.5, stopped connecting to the yahoo im service with a "connection refused message" I found that this was a recent issue with a work around.

I created a batch file to do this work-around if this happens again.

REM flush dns so pidgin will work with yahoo
REM see http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/8853#comment:5
ping scs.msg.yahoo.com
ipconfig /flushdns
ping scs.msg.yahoo.com
pause

UPDATE 2009-06-21

There are further issues with this that showed up last week, or maybe just more yahoo servers are upgraded. Pidgin 2.5.7 works for me so far and I flushed my dns a couple of times.

See http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/8853#comment:77

SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 Custom Assembly Error

2009-04-07T14:08:00.002-07:00

Error while loading code module: ‘RS_funcs, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null’. Details: Could not load file or assembly 'RS_funcs, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Last fall I was getting this error when trying to get our reporting projects created in VS 2005 to work in VS 2008. I found this post showing where to put your custom assembly in order for the VS designed to work. I post it here so as not to forget again. In VS 2008, the path is "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies"

Generics Review

2009-01-21T12:03:00.002-07:00

I have had some practical experience with generics. Here is a nice explanation, from ondotnet.com, of the problem generics solves. I particularly like this summary statement, "Generics thus allow you to create type-safe collections without having to duplicate code. "

How to find Windows uptime?

2009-01-13T12:48:00.002-07:00

From MS Help and Support

1. Go to "Start" -> "Run".

2. Write "CMD" and press on "Enter" key.

3. Write the command "net statistics server" and press on "Enter" key.

4. The line that start with "Statistics since …" provides the time that the server was up from.

The command "net stats srv" can be use instead.

10 Useful Techniques To Improve Your User Interface Designs

2008-12-16T10:31:00.002-07:00

Here is an article a friend at work forwarded to me. They are worth remembering.

Holy Handywoman!

2008-12-06T10:23:00.009-07:00

or "My Breakthrough in Handymanliness"

I have serious issues about not being an adequate handyman. Often I get frustrated and/or overwhelmed and then avoid it.

Last summer, our clothes washer (Whirlpool Model #LSQ9544KQ0) would stop in the spin cycle. We figured out that we could put a detergent bottle on the lid and it would continue. The number of bottles and people required to make it finish mounted until it refused to work a few days ago.

I first thought of how much money we would have to spend on buying a new one. I completely avoided the thought of repairing it. It is over 7 years old and I thought it may just be time. Stephanie remembered that we had the same problem some time ago and had a repairman out to fix it. She found the part that he used to fix it. This encouraged me. Thursday evening I researched where to buy it and yesterday morning I stopped by Appliance Parts Co and bought a lid switch assembly for $42.64.

This morning I planned on fixing it together. I am more confident when she is there to support (show me) me. I got our tools out and started looking for things to take apart. Steph looked up instructions and diagrams on how to open up the washer. We found an illuminating video that gave us an idea of how to get it open. Steph figured out I had taken out the wrong screws.

Once we took the correct screws out we were able to flip up the control panel, pop off the clamps and open the front of the washer following the great how-to video we found. It was relatively simple to take off the switch assembly and put in the new one.

It turned out that Steph was the one doing all the handy-work and I handed her tools. It reminded me of when I was a boy helping out my dad. It is kind of like when we are explaining the rules of a game. She doesn't want to start. I get going and then she finishes.

The whole experience was small on frustration and large on satisfaction. We saved several hundred dollars and my handy-ego has been boosted. I am going to do all my handy-work with her from now on. (Like I ever do it at all).

TortoiseSVN ignore-on-commit

2008-12-06T06:06:00.004-07:00

I wanted to be able to have my web.config in the repository but not have certain working copies commit. I found "ignore-on-commit" at http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/tsvn_1.5_releasenotes.html. I think this will work best for me.

I have also used the strategy at http://subversion.tigris.org/faq.html#ignore-commit. It ensures all working copy web.config files never get committed. You have to manually copy the contents of the renamed, unversioned web.config to the versioned template.

** Update 2009-03-26 **

I tried to use this again and forgot how to do it. The change list help page clearly states that you do a context menu on the file you want to add to a change list within the commit or check-for-modifications dialog box. I kept trying to see it in the window folder context menu for the file I wanted to add to a change list.

Change the number of rings

2008-11-27T11:18:00.001-07:00

This is how you change the number of rings before your phone goes to voice mail for Cox phone service in Phoenix.

Press *78. Then press the number of ring you want till is goes to voice mail.

What does Agile mean?

2008-11-14T12:36:00.003-07:00

This sums up what I think of when think of Agile software development, "Agile is about creating better products, and making the process less painful along the way". I found it in the cooper.com article The missing piece: How interaction design can add to Agile.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with another developer. We were talking about creating some kind of job tracking system so we can more accurately identify how much each widget costs. The conversation came down to, "Make it painless yet required". You don't want to tax the time of your producers, yet you want to more accurately capture costs per widget.

That is the idea of continuous integration. Whenever your code is committed, the unit tests on the build machine start running. They soon let you know if your changes broke any existing tests.

Some other quotes I like from the article:

"Agile helps people focus on the value the product delivers to real people"

"A focus on working code helps Agile projects stay honest."

"The Agile process does not provide tools to define key business or user experience objectives"

Dominant, Expressive, Analytical and Amiable

2008-10-28T00:58:00.005-07:00

In July, I attended a personality seminar run by Persogenics. I have done several personality, self helpy things in my life. Sometimes I get a little wary of this kind of thing. There are a few things I found useful from the seminar.

The workshop focused on improving the communication between people with very different styles. There are four patterns people use to communicate: Dominant, Expressive, Analytical and Amiable. Most people have a primary and secondary way of communicating.

One of the best stories was one the facilitator told of a rafting trip they went on as a company. It was a hoot to hear how the people of the different styles interacted with each other.

The bottom line for me were two things to remember per communication style. One was what the person of the style was to remember. The other was what others could keep in mind when communicating with the person. This is what I remember:

A dominant communicator should remember to ask not tell. Others should remember to take them seriously but not personally.

An expressive communicator should let others know when they are talking out loud. Others should restate what they heard them say. If appropriate, touch them to let them know you understand what they said. Paraphrase, playback.

An analytical communicator should let others know when they are thinking, "Let me think for a moment". Others should give them time (5-10 seconds) after asking them a question.

An amiable communicator should remember to speak up now, sooner is better than later. Others should ask to ask, "May I ask you something?"

This came up for my wife and I last night. It has helped us to avoid misunderstandings. It may help me at work too. It will serve me to remember these lessons.

Great Zip Code Map Site

2008-10-09T01:01:00.001-07:00

Here is a great mapping site that shows you zip codes.

http://maps.huge.info/zip.htm

View HTML Color

2008-09-24T12:47:00.002-07:00

Occasionally, I need to see what an HTML color looks like. This site was useful.

http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html

Google Chrome is an Operating System

2008-09-19T13:43:00.002-07:00

I generally liked the look and feel of Google's Chrome browser when I first tried it. Today I found the Google Chrome Task Manager. There is more at Google Chrome's Full List of Special about: Pages.

There is a good introductory video at 10 Features of Google Chrome. Quite impressive.

Solar Noon

2008-09-17T10:28:00.002-07:00

I have an uncommon interest in timezones and solar patterns. A while ago I wondered where in the MST does the timezone time and the solar time match.

One way to find out is to find the location where is it solar noon on an equinox day. A friend of mine used solar-noon.com to figure out that Albuquerque is where solar noon and MST noon are the same (see chart). Kind of funny that is always daylight savings on the equinox days.

I just noticed that the spring equinox is not noon. I am not sure what that means.

Delete Temporary ASP.NET Files

2008-08-27T11:13:00.004-07:00

IIS caches the dlls my ASP.NET project references. On my development box sometimes it does not copy the new files over. To ensure that IIS is using your latest files

- From command line issue a "IISReset /stop" command to stop IIS
- Delete the C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\ folder
- Start IIS with "IISReset"

View Message Source in Outlook 2003

2008-08-22T06:23:00.002-07:00

The Lazy Admin was useful to me today

The other day I wrote how to view message headers in OWA, and recieved a lot of mail asking if this can be done it Outlook as well. If you have ever used Outlook Express, you might be familiar with the View --> Source option. In Outlook this feature does not exist.

Outlook gives you the option to View --> Options which will display the e-mail header. To enable the View --> Source functionality in Outlook 2003 open up regedit and drill down to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Options\Mail

Create a new Reg_DWORD called SaveAllMIMENotJustHeaders and give it a value of 1. This will enalbe the View --> Source option in Outlook 2003 but there are a few exceptions. It will only work for messages received after the change has been made and will not work with MAPI connections (i.e. Exchange mailboxes). You will only have this option for mail received from Internet transports (i.e. POP3)

Where is the rawurlencode of ASP.NET?

2008-08-22T05:51:00.006-07:00

I could not find a function in ASP.NET that behaves like PHP's rawurlencode. System.Web.HttpUtility and HttpServerUtility both have UrlEncode and UrlPathEncode. So I created the function below to extend UrlEncode to manually encode the characters that kept the the filenames from working as an <a href path

/// <summary>
/// HttpUtility.UrlEncode() and Server.UrlEncode()
/// do not urlencode some special characters.
/// This procedure ensures that the file part of the
/// url returned is properly encoded
/// Used http://www.voormedia.com/en/tools/url-encoder-php-asp-urlencode.php
/// to see what characters urlencode to
/// Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Url_encoding
/// </summary>
/// <param name="Filename"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static string GetUrlEncodedFilename(string Filename)
{
string FileNameEncoded = "";
if (Filename != null)
{ FileNameEncoded = HttpUtility.UrlEncode(Filename);
//UrlEncode encodes spaces to pluses. http://forums.asp.net/t/1231078.aspx
FileNameEncoded = FileNameEncoded.Replace("+", "%20");
//Encode ' so the href specification does not terminate
FileNameEncoded = FileNameEncoded.Replace("'", "%27");
} return FileNameEncoded;
}

Here is an online HTML encoder I used to be able to format the code to show up correctly.

Wireless Mastered!

2008-08-03T08:15:00.003-07:00

I recently split up my two computers at home. One upstairs and one down. I decided to set up a wireless network. It has been frustrating. I ended buying a new wireless router and a new wireless network card. I did get a better signal, but my wireless machine would not connect automatically.

The solution that finally worked was to disable the LinkSys software managing the network card. Use Windows to manage the connection.

Right click on your network adapter and choose view available network connections. From that screen pick the manage preferred networks. You get the follow dialogs. Manually enter the SSID and other information like your wireless router has them. Bingo, my wireless machine connects automatically, every time.

Use your wings, try it again

2008-07-09T10:40:00.003-07:00

It has been nearly 3 years since I wrote Use your wings. There is a new guy working here. We have been considering actually implementing unit tests, continuous integration. This kind of work requires front loading the process. He said something that caught my attention, "Pay the price to reduce the friction".

I have had reticence. I have been resisting this kind of change. I am nearing the end of a long project. I am not in the frame of mind to start this kind of investment in time and brain power.

In many ways for the last three years I have wondered and the power of using my wings. I have even these more effective processes a bit. Many times I have given up and walked home.

I still believe there is large improvements that can be made in my software development methodology. I commit to doing my best to suspend my disbelief. To incrementally start using units tests then continuous integration.

I get an exception until I delete my *.suo file

2008-07-02T15:50:00.006-07:00

A colleague of mine just found the solution to a particularly hard kind of exception raised in Visual Studio 2008. He merged a branch he had made in SVN into the main dev branch. All of a sudden, the project threw an exception, but only in debug mode.

He figured it out by copying file by file from the working folder of his branch to the working folder of the merged branch. Everything was the same except the *.suo file. Once he copied it, it was fine.

It ended up being an option he had set in the "Break when an exception is" dialog box. You get to this from the Debug/Exceptions menu.

Some time beforehand, he had the check box thrown checked for "Common Language Runtime Exceptions". So in debug mode, he was seeing an exception in the .NET runtime that was handled in a try block. You can F5 through the exception because it is handled. If you are not used to seeing handled exceptions this will throw you off.

The problem here is that anyone searching for this error would have to know the solution before being able to find it. Normally you Google the exception text. That could be anything.

So beware! Use the VS 2008 "Break when an exception is" dialog with caution. And then revert back to the default settings as soon as you are done.

Getting Null Values into the database by Stored Procedures

2008-06-18T10:13:00.008-07:00

This is how I got null values into the database using MS-SQL Server, C# 3.5 and the System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[UserInfo](
[UserID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[FNAME] [nvarchar](50) NULL
...
)

CREATE PROCEDURE usp_UserInfo_Add
@UserID int
,@FNAME nvarchar(50)
AS
...

private void AddUserInfo(int UserId, string FName
, ...)
{

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand command = new System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand();
...
command.Parameters.Add("@FName", SqlDbType.NVarChar, 50);
command.Parameters["@FName"].Value = FName ?? (object)DBNull.Value;

It check for a null value and sends in the required DBNull.Value instead. This what I originally had in AddUserInfo

command.Parameters["@FName"].Value = FName;

If I pass in a null value in FName into AddUserInfo, it sends the following to the SQL Server

exec usp_UserInfo_Add @UserID = 801678, @FName = default

There is no default defined on the stored procedure so it fails saying you did not provide a value for a required parameter.

Another solution would have been to define a default value in the stored procedure as follows.

CREATE PROCEDURE usp_UserInfo_Add
@UserID int
,@FNAME nvarchar(50) = NULL
AS
...

Then I could pass a null value in FName into AddUserInfo, the stored procedure would provide NULL as the default.

Home Network with XP Home Edition

2008-05-24T12:23:00.003-07:00

I asked our network admin from work if he would help me connect my two computers at home.

One is a XP Home Edition and the other is XP Proferssional. I have a netgear router hooked to the computer. The router is hooked to the cable modem. I want to share files between them and be able to get to the printer from both. He offer a few settings to look at. I ended up using only two tips to get this accomplished.

- Put both machines in the same workgroup. I think this is what allowed them to ping each other.

At this point I could connect from the Home Edition to the Professional. I could then get to C$ after logging in as a admin user of the Pro machine. I could not however, get to the Home machine from the Pro one.

- Go through the Network Setup Wizard on the Home Edition PC. This is found at Start | All Programs | Accessories | Communications | Network Setup Wizard. See Practically Networked.

The only catch is that I have to explicitly add folders to my SharedDocs folder on the Home Edition in order for them to be available on the Pro.

I dragged the printer I wanted from Home Edition to Pro. Now I can print from the Pro machine.

Beyond Compare File Filters

2008-05-23T15:14:00.002-07:00

I don't know why I did not know this before. I use Subversion and I always want Beyond Compare to ignore the _svn folder in my working copies.

Go to the Session\File Filters menu. Add "_svn" to the Exclude folders text box.

Now I never have to see_svn folders in beyond compare again.

Tab Delimited Results From SQL Server

2008-05-21T14:07:00.002-07:00

Here is how you can export your SQL Server 2005 Management Studio results to a tab delimited file, including the column names.

Navigate to Tools | Options | Query Results | SQL Server | Results to Text

The settings only apply to new query windows opened.

From
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1105

Server Up Time

2008-05-21T11:55:00.001-07:00

For a windows machine,

"The 'net statistics workstation' command will tell you the last time your
computer was rebooted."

From
http://www.itnewsgroups.net/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.general/topic8056.aspx

Improve My Software Delivery Commitments

2008-05-14T02:43:00.003-07:00

In Oct 07 I first read about the Evidence Based Scheduling feature of FogBugz. I like reading Joel Spolsky because he seems to tell it straight regardless of the subject. This time, it stung. Software projects are chronically late. Most projects I have been on in the last 9 years are no exception. When I read this article, I took up courage to ask a co-worker about it. He was excited about using something like this.

Well we took the plunge. We tried FogBugz for a month in January and then bought some licenses. I recently got a new supervisor. She seems willing to try out FogBugz as our software project management tool.

From Evidence Based Scheduling,

Why won’t developers make schedules? Two reasons. One: it’s a pain in the butt. Two: nobody believes the schedule is realistic. Why go to all the trouble of working on a schedule if it’s not going to be right?

Over the last year or so at Fog Creek we’ve been developing a system that’s so easy even our grouchiest developers are willing to go along with it. And as far as we can tell, it produces extremely reliable schedules. It’s called Evidence-Based Scheduling, or EBS. You gather evidence, mostly from historical timesheet data, that you feed back into your schedules. What you get is not just one ship date: you get a confidence distribution curve, showing the probability that you will ship on any given date. It looks like this:

The steeper the curve, the more confident you are that the ship date is real.

Here is a 70 minute video Joel Spolsky made in Oct 07 that explains the Evidence Based Scheduling feature of Fogbugz.

Frederick P. Brooks in 1987,

Not only are there no silver bullets now in view, the very nature of software makes it unlikely that there will be any—no inventions that will do for software productivity, reliability, and simplicity what electronics, transistors, and large-scale integration did for computer hardware.... I believe the hard part of building software to be the specification, design, and testing of this conceptual construct, not the labor of representing it and testing the fidelity of the representation.... If this is true, building software will always be hard. There is inherently no silver bullet.

Fogbugz is not the golden goose that will solve all software development problems. As I persist in my discipline to use it, it will help me make more accurate delivery estimates.

"An order of magnitude better"

2008-04-02T09:50:00.014-07:00

We have been looking for one of the best programmers at my work. Since my supervisor no longer can do the leg work of phone screening and setting up interviews, I have volunteered to take this hat. It has been a revealing exercise.

There is a consensus in the software development industry that the best programmers are "an order of magnitude better than the average ones" Spolsky.

A Guide to Hiring Programmers: The High Cost of Low Quality, revsys.com

"there is at least an order of magnitude of skill difference between the average programmer and the best programmer, and maybe even two orders of magnitude" Barnes.

"many studies have shown order of magnitude differences in the quality of the programs written, the sizes of the programs written, and the productivity of the programmers" McConnell

"[Bill] Curtis observed order of magnitude differences among the programmers" McConnell

Skill Disparities in Programming. Atwood.

I am by no means one of the best programmers. I generously consider myself in the upper end of average. One of the things I remember from my interview with Vitrix years ago was that they wanted to hire people smarter than themselves.

With the help of another programmer and a few resources on the web, I have gathered a list of interview questions that discover the skills and qualities of a developer. I am sure we will find a match with someone passionate about effective software development.

Here is our job posting, by the way. If you think you fit the drive, curiosity and skills to join us, come on! Even if you think you are shy on experience, take a plunge. We will be gentle.

C# XML documentation

2008-04-01T15:20:00.002-07:00

We are using sandcastle to generate help documents from xml comments of our code.

Remember, /// will get you started.

C# XML documentation comments FAQ

MS Windows Workflow Foundation

2008-04-01T13:41:00.003-07:00

Someone as work mentioned that we might consider MS Windows Workflow Foundation after hearing us describe the project we have been creating for the last many months. Following are some notes I took in my introduction to it.

ASP.NET and Windows Workflows Foundation

Manage application processes with Windows Workflow Foundation Brian Noyce

Link to a poster of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 update to the Commonly Used Types and Namespaces.

Notes from Michael Stiefel on Windows Workflow Foundation
1 of 4

"Workflow is the automated processes of a Business Process" Reliable Software

6:21
Reusable Business Activities
Separate Workflow from Activity

This workflow is hosted somewhere. Sharepoint?

Workflow runtime

9:50
Concept of Host
Concept of Activity
Concept of Workflow

10:30
The dream is these activities will be manipulated by Business Analysts in a drag and drop way.

2 of 4

5:30
Activities are not small atomic. These are long processes.
Programmers cannot stay in the back room. You are not of high value. You are just a coder.

Just Do It

2008-03-25T12:25:00.002-07:00

After having a conversation with a collegue where we turned grandiose in our plans, he became frustrated because of the obstacles in our company. I said, "do get some code working and you'll feel better". Joel had this to say in Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt.

A lot can be done to improve the project just by one person doing it. Don't have a daily build server? Make one. Set your own machine up with a scheduled job to make builds at night and send out email results. Does it take too many steps to make the build? Write the makefile. Nobody does usability tests? Do your own hallway usability tests on the mailroom folks with a piece of paper or a VB prototype.

Outbound Filter or Inbound Filter

2008-03-25T10:18:00.002-07:00

I have had three occasions to remember Joel's reference to tact filters. He said

there's always some person without an outbound filter who feels compelled to tell you about how he uses Opera, so he doesn't have this problem, although, frankly, I could care less what Anonymous uses. He's not even human to me, he's anonymous.

Joel refers to Jeff Bigler's description of Tact Filters. Here is Jeff's entire post.

I came up with this idea several years ago in a conversation with a friend at MIT, who was regularly finding herself upset by other people who worked in her lab. The analogy worked so well in helping her to understand her co-workers that I decided to write it up and put it on the web. I've gotten quite a few email messages since then from other people who have also found it helpful.

All people have a "tact filter", which applies tact in one direction to everything that passes through it. Most "normal people" have the tact filter positioned to apply tact in the outgoing direction. Thus whatever normal people say gets the appropriate amount of tact applied to it before they say it. This is because when they were growing up, their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!"

"Nerds," on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the incoming direction. Thus, whatever anyone says to them gets the appropriate amount of tact added when they hear it. This is because when nerds were growing up, they continually got picked on, and their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "They're just saying those mean things because they're jealous. They don't really mean it."

When normal people talk to each other, both people usually apply the appropriate amount of tact to everything they say, and no one's feelings get hurt. When nerds talk to each other, both people usually apply the appropriate amount of tact to everything they hear, and no one's feelings get hurt. However, when normal people talk to nerds, the nerds often get frustrated because the normal people seem to be dodging the real issues and not saying what they really mean. Worse yet, when nerds talk to normal people, the normal people's feelings often get hurt because the nerds don't apply tact, assuming the normal person will take their blunt statements and apply whatever tact is necessary.

So, nerds need to understand that normal people have to apply tact to everything they say; they become really uncomfortable if they can't do this. Normal people need to understand that despite the fact that nerds are usually tactless, things they say are almost never meant personally and shouldn't be taken that way. Both types of people need to be extra patient when dealing with someone whose tact filter is backwards relative to their own.

MST, MDT, MT or Mountain Time

2008-03-21T06:58:00.007-07:00

I have had an uncommon interest in time zones ever since I developed software to handle them in NetTime. Living in Arizona has added to this. We buck the daylight savings system most states follow in the USA.

So this morning I was prompted by a pet peeve. When referring to a time zone which one is most appropriate to use?
MST (Mountain Standard Time)
MDT (Mountain Daylight Time)
MT (Mountain Time)

Grammar Girl says,

"It seems to me that people often don't even know whether it is standard time or daylight-saving time. It doesn't hurt to use EST or PST, but I've certainly seen people write PST when it is daylight-saving time, so I think it's fine to say just eastern time or Pacific time. It's better to leave off a detail than to get it wrong!"

I agree with grammar girl. If you have the discipline to use CST or CDT accurately, go ahead. Otherwise, you should play it safe. For March 20, 2008, use "The server issue was resolved at approximately 6:30 AM Central Time". Grammar Girl continues to describe a frustration that Arizonans can relate to.

"Also, after living in Arizona and missing enough meetings because of time-zone confusion, I like to spell things out as clearly as possible, so I appreciate it when people say something like "We're meeting at 1:00 p.m. eastern time -- that's 10:00 a.m. your time." (Of course, then you need to make sure you do the conversion right.)"

Budgets

2008-03-20T15:33:00.002-07:00

We have been navigating the red tape in our company to get some software tools we want to be effective. This quote from Milton Friedman kept coming to my mind.

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get.

Here is a video of Milton Friedman about this. Here is a chart of the quadrants he talks about.

We have been working in quadrant III. Trying to get our company to spend their money on tools we need. We had to convince them that they will get a timely return on their investment.

Key words: budget

Programs I use at work

2008-03-19T13:41:00.025-07:00

Here is a list of programs I like to use at work. Someday I may need this list to install some of my favorite apps.

Updated 2011-08-30

MS Visual Studio ~~2005 and~~ 2008
MS SQL Server Tools
Notepad++
Crimson Editor 3.70 - Has column mode editing [Edit/Column Mode Alt+C ] and it is open source
Also has Convert Tab to Spaces (Document/Tabs & Spaces/...)
Cygwin
DS Clock
Beyond Compare
Subversion
- ~~AnkhSVN~~
- TortoiseSVN
Log Parser 2.2
NeoShooter, 4.0.3b*
Pidgin IM
~~Juice~~
Regex Coach
Calendar 2000
~~Winamp~~
~~WinRAR~~, 3.51*

7-Zip
Unlocker
CutePDF Writer
~~Free Download Manager~~
~~IE7Pro~~
Simple-Adblock.com (Ad Blocking for Internet Explorer)
FireFox Add-ons
- Adblock Plus
- ~~Web Developer~~
- Firebug
- ~~Restart Firefox~~
Restart Firefox
- JSONView

- FiddlerHook
- Memory Restart
- Multiple Tab Handler
- Tab Utilities
If your menu toolbar is not visible you get to these settings by clicking on the "Firefox orange button in the title bar and then choose AddOns.

Change the Alt+Tab behavior to the FF and Chrome default. In the "Tab Opening" tab, uncheck Location under the "Open new tabs for". This will allow the same behavior as before where Alt+enter opens in a new tab.

Adjust the appearance given to unread tabs. Under the Appearance button, choose Tabs. In the Tab Highlighting section, click Unread. Uncheck enabled. I do not need to be so distracted just because one of my tabs refreshed itself. For the "Current" Tab uncheck the color. It is also distracting.

- Omnibar Instead of Omnibar, customize what is shown in the navigation tool bar. Right-Click in the tool bar and choose customize. Drag the items you do not want into the Customize toolbar dialog. I drag everything except the address bar, the refresh button, the stop button, Ad-Block Plus and favorites. The address bar in FF seems to behave like the omnibar in Chrome. There is no need for the search box.

FastResolver
IECookiesView
Blank screen saver
- path "C:\WINDOWS\system32\scrnsave.scr"
- Shortcut key Ctrl+Shift+F
- Put the shortcut on your desktop and you can always hit the shortcut to quickly eliminate the screen and the distraction while on a phone call and then instantly return to your work.
Google Desktop
RealVNC, 4.12*
FogBugz
Foxit Reader (PDF), 2.0*

Dropper - get the color of any pixel on the screen

* Older or hard to find version. I may have to login to pages.google.com to get these through a web filter.

"8 billion existing web pages be damned"

2008-03-17T14:03:00.006-07:00

"8 billion existing web pages be damned" is my favorite one-liner from the latest article on JoelOnSoftware.com. It is was the idealists said when they said IE8 needed to be strict when rendering web pages.

It is a good description of the chasm between idealistic engineers and compliance with the standards and pragmatists who want to make the software work with the existing customer base.

There is no solution. Each solution is terribly wrong. Eric Bangeman at ars technica writes, “The IE team has to walk a fine line between tight support for W3C standards and making sure sites coded for earlier versions of IE still display correctly.” This is incorrect. It’s not a fine line. It’s a line of negative width. There is no place to walk. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

That’s why I can’t take sides on this issue and I’m not going to. But every working software developer should understand, at least, how standards work, how standards should work, how we got into this mess, so I want to try to explain a little bit about the problem here, and you’ll see that it’s the same reason Microsoft Vista is selling so poorly, and it’s the same issue I wrote about when I referred to the Raymond Chen camp (pragmatists) at Microsoft vs. the MSDN camp (idealists), the MSDN camp having won, and now nobody can figure out where their favorite menu commands went in Microsoft Office 2007, and nobody wants Vista, and it’s all the same debate: whether you are an Idealist (”red”) or a Pragmatist (”blue”).

TIOBE Programming Community Index

2008-02-15T11:29:00.002-07:00

I looked at this several years ago. It is interesting to see the long term trends of programming languages.

The TIOBE Programming Community index gives an indication of the popularity of programming languages. The index is updated once a month. The ratings are based on the world-wide availability of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors. The popular search engines Google, MSN, Yahoo!, and YouTube are used to calculate the ratings. Observe that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.

It has a nice graph displaying the trends.

Could not load type error in VS 2005 Web Application

2008-02-14T15:07:00.001-07:00

Occurring in an existing project

Occasionally I get an error like

Could not load type 'MOS5.MOSLinks'

when editing a web page. I have seen a lot of posts that address this error. For MOS5 it has always come down to case sensitivity.

I end up comparing the existing version to a previous one. Today I noticed that the MOSLinks.aspx.vb had this at the top of the file.

Imports MOS5.mosLinks

I edited this line in MOSLinks.aspx

Inherits="MOS5.MOSLinks"

to this

Inherits="MOS5.mosLinks"

After compiling, the error went away.

Occurring in a newly published project

Make sure the folder you are publishing to is a virtual directory.

Repeat a String n Times

2008-02-14T14:51:00.003-07:00

I was looking to repeat a string n times using only T-SQL. My friend found it in this article. This reference may prove useful later.

From SQL BOL 2000:
Replicate - Repeats a character expression for a specified number of times.

Keyboard Shortcuts in Gmail

2008-02-13T10:56:00.001-07:00

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594

c = Compose
/ = put cursor in Search box

Maybe these will save me time

Beyond Compare File Comparison Rules

2008-02-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

I was comparing two versions of my code. The right side of my comparison had tabs the left had spaces. Visual Studio 2005 must have put them in there. Beyond Compare (BC), highlighted the differences.

I made BC ignore leading whitespace in the "Everything Else" rule set by going to the Tools/Edit Current Rules/ menu. In the importance tab check "Leading whitespace". The right side was much more indented than the left. I fixed this my going to the General tab and choosing 4 characters = tab stops.

Now BC shows me only the important differences in my code versions.

You can pick rules by using the Tools/Pick Rules menu. I don't know why it did not pick VB when I was comparing two *.vb files.

I am using Beyond Compare version 2.4.3 (build 243).

Minimum Online Configuration

2008-01-29T11:33:00.016-07:00

I recently looked at my sister in law's computer. They said it was running slow. My brother had a similar problem several months ago. Following is my minimum configuration for a windows computer connected to the Internet.

Automatic updates - Windows update is usually configured properly to download and install updates automatically. I have found with two XP installations that I had to manually get SP2 installed first. You can check yours in Start/Control Panel/Automatic Updates.

Anti virus - In both cases I had to get an anti virus running first before I could get SP2 to install. Maybe the viruses that were found where desperately fighting to keep the exterminator from getting in. My cousin mentioned AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition. It seems to work fine. You will have to be careful when you install it. It tries to get you to install a free trial of the non-free version. This is a common practice for providers of free software. Just read the notices as you download and install.
UPDATE Dec 2010: Instead of AVG you should install MS Security Essentials. It is free and from Microsoft. I have run it on one of my computers for several months now.

Firewall - Hardware or software. Basic users will be fine with ZoneAlarm® Free Firewall or something similar. Wikipedia gives a comprehensive description. It will close the doors and windows you are using in your computer. It will ask you for permission when a program asks to get to the Internet. You can let it remember which programs you trust.

UPDATE Dec 2010: I don't use a firewall any more. I have a router between my cable modem and my network. It blocks much of the bad people trying to access your network. You may want to install one if you have people that aren't careful on your network. It will stop malware that you have mistakenly installed to try and phone home.

Internet filter - There are those on the Internet that want to sell you on unsavory things. ~~BSafe Online is the one we use.~~ It has a firewall included. It uses server side filtering. Putting your computer in a public place in your home is another practical and necessary step to keeping you and your family safe. Active parenting has no substitute. ~~This is the only one I have not found a satisfactory free option. It is worth the service.~~

UPDATE Dec 2010: OpenDNS has a free option and it will protect your whole network, if you set it up on your router. It pays for itself with ads. Whenever you hit a site that is blocked a OpenDNS page it shown with ads. You can choose a paid for option and eliminate the ads and increase your log retention to I think 2 years. Here is how you set it up.

Defragment - In XP you can schedule the defragmenter to run as a scheduled task. This may improve access time to your hard drive. Start/Control Panel/Scheduled Tasks/Add Scheduled Task. Point the wizard to C:\WINDOWS\system32\defrag.exe.

Reduce start up apps - Programs sometimes are intrusive. They want you to use them. They get themselves to start up when you start your computer. They can slow your system down. Here I detail how you can tell your computer what is important to you.

The Five Browser Shortcuts Everyone Should Know

2008-01-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Five Browser Shortcuts Everyone Should Know tells of often used keyboard shortcuts in IE7.

1. Set up a keyboard shortcut to launch your browser
2. Alt+D to navigate to the browser address bar
3. Ctrl+E to navigate to the browser search box
4. Alt+Enter to open searches or websites in a new tab
5. The middle mouse button opens links in a new tab, and also closes tabs

ClearType Tuner PowerToy

2008-01-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

I just got a new wide screen LCD monitor at work. I found the MS tool, ClearType Tuner PowerToy, made the text much more clear.

Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?

2008-01-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me this from the Journal of Defense Software Engineering, Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?

If programmers only learn higher levels of software development, who will build the next great operating system? Who will build the compilers for the higher level languages?

Joel Splosky refers to this article and suggests creating Bachelor of Fine Arts in Software Development.

Imagine instead an undergraduate curriculum that consists of 1/3 liberal arts, and 2/3 software development work. The teachers are experienced software developers from industry. The studio operates like a software company. You might be able to major in Game Development and work on a significant game title, for example, and that's how you spend most of your time, just like a film student spends a lot of time actually making films and the dance students spend most of their time dancing.

Gmail Edit Link Shortcut Key

2008-01-03T13:41:00.002-07:00

I love Gmail. I never have to look at another flashy ad from one of the other webmail providers again. I feel assaulted when my wife and I are browsing together and she is reading her email. I hope Google never changes from their non intrusive, text based ads.

One peeve I have with Gmail is there is no keyboard shortcut to Edit Link. I use Edit Link often when I compose an email. I have gotten used to ctrl+k in MS-Word. IE will open a hyperlink dialog when I use ctrl+k. Firefox uses ctrl+k to set focus on the search bar. I wouldn't mind learning to remember another keyboard shortcut if they would only provide it.

One more thing. It would be great for it to be the same shortcut key that blogger.com and any other editing tool google has (will have).

**** Update 2009-10-14 ****
I was hoping that the new Custom Keyboard Shortcuts would allow me to assign a Ctrl+K some other kind of keyboard shortcut to allow me to bring up the "Edit Link" dialog box when I am composing a message alas no.

Clearing the ARP Cache

2007-12-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

From Chris Sanders at windowsnetworking.com

You can view your workstations ARP table by typing “arp –a” from a command prompt. Deleting the ARP cache is just as simple and can be done from a command prompt by typing “netsh interface ip delete arpcache”.

Explore with this as Root, Explorer Hack

2007-11-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

A friend at work created this registry file that allows you to view a folder as if it is the root. It simplifies the view so you can easily find the files you are currently working with.

It will add a "Explore with this as root" context (right-click) menu item on folders in Windows Explorer. When you execute it a new Windows Explorer window opens up with the selected folder as root with the folder pane showing.

explore_with_this_as_root.reg

A Tiny IDE for JavaScript

2007-10-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

http://tide4javascript.com/

A great way to test out small snippets of javascript.

Sorting out Sorting

2007-10-05T09:57:00.001-07:00

I recently found Everything Is Fast For Small n on codinghorror.com. Fascinating. It led me to Sorting out Sorting and the video below.

Click here to see the video at a larger size.
Video length: 31 minutes, 15 seconds.

Here is an abbreviated version of the video.

Customize startup applications

2007-08-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

Updated 2008-01-29

Use MSConfig.exe (from start\run) to disable their start up. Also look in "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup" and remove any programs that should start up. Use google to find out what each process does and why you need it.

MSConfig for Rich
InetCntrl - "Bsafe Online"
SHSTAT - Network Associates, virus scan
stsystra - comes with Dell PC, runs pc audio, need to function correctly
TBMon - Network Associates, virus scan
UdaterUI - Network Associates, virus scan

MsConfig I Unchecked
ctfmon - " Some times my Windows XP is very slow and this file is the responsable"
hpcmpmgr - HP for my printer. I will update you if I need you. Don't steal my memory!
HPWuSchd - HP for my printer.
hpztsb09 - HP for my printer.
isuspm - Install shield update service. I will update you if I need you. Don't steal my memory!
issch - Install shield update service.
jusched - Java Runtime engine updater
MvMcTray - " runs in system tray, and gives you quick access to display settings."
NvCpl - NVIDIA Display Driver Service, "an unecessary service and have had mine disabled for
years"
nwiz - "the executable for the NVidia options and control panel. You don't need it on startup,uncheck it in msconfig"

Put the following shortcuts in each user's "C:\Documents and Settings\--username--\Start Menu\Programs\Startup"

Startup for Rich
Shortcut pointing to ("C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" http://mail.google.com/mail/)
"C:\Program Files\Google\Google Desktop Search\GoogleDesktop.exe" /startup
Shortcut to dsclock "C:\Program Files\DS Clock\dsclock.exe"
"C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.0\program\quickstart.exe"
"C:\Program Files\Juice\Juice.exe"

For Steph only
"C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger\msnmsgr.exe" /background

For kids
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" http://www.starfall.com/

Maybe
"C:\Program Files\ClearPlay\ClearPlay Easy Updates\ClearPlayEasyUpdates.exe"
"C:\Program Files\google\GoogleToolbarNotifier\GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe"

This way, my login does not start up Windows Live Messenger. And we only have one copy of the utilities running.

RegEx trick for sql field names

2007-08-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

A new guy at work has shown me how powerful regular expressions are. Following is a trick for formatting the columns names of a SQL table.

Do a query in SQL Query Analyzer on your table like:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE 1=0

Results in

Column1 Column2 Column3 Column4

It will return 0 rows. Be sure to return the results as text (ctrl + T), so you can just copy the header row that will have all the field names, separated by a ton of spaces. Paste the results in Notepad++. Open up the replace dialog. Check the "Regular expressions".

Find \s+

"\s" means find any white space. "+" means repeat the previous character until you don't find it anymore.

Replace with \n,

That is a new line and a comma.

The final result is

Column1
,Column2
,Column3
,Column4

Notepad++ uses the POSIX regular expression language. I look forward to using it more.

VS2005 Super Slow Design Mode ASPX

2007-06-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I upgraded my AjaxControlToolkit.dll. I started running into this problem that I found posted in the comments at A few VS 2005 SP1 Links and Information Nuggets

Friday, January 12, 2007 12:33 PM by Mark
I've run into a problem that started showing up randomly after SP1 was installed:
I attempt to view an aspx page in Design mode and at each control that is getting created takes at least 2 minutes. The window becomes unresponsive and all I see is:
Creating control 'controlName1'
a few minutes later.
Creating control 'controlName2'
After 10 minutes, I have to kill Visual Studio -- any insight into this?
-Mark

I eventually got a new working copy of my project from subversion and the issue went away. I must have found something like what was post later in the comments of the same article.

Thursday, January 25, 2007 5:39 PM by Dave Franke
Hi Scott,
Finally got around the problem. Not sure what it was. I checked my web.config files but did not see anything releated to two competing references. We work with TFS. So in the end I deleted everything in my workspace and retrieved all the source code and the problem was gone. Tried a Force Get latest before that but it did not work either.
Thanks,
Dave

I am not sure what it was but this solved it. It happened again after I upgraded AjaxControlToolkit.dll following the instructions here. I post it here so I won't forget again.

ASP.NET Cheat Sheets

2007-06-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

Sam at work sent me this. It may come in handy someday.

http://john-sheehan.com/blog/index.php/new-cheat-sheet-link/

Clearing the print queue

2007-06-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

Occasionally our printer at home gets jobs stuck in the print queue. I write this so we can remember what my wife did to clear it.

We have a HP deskjet 3500, from the HP site

Introduction
When print jobs are initiated, they are stored in a print job list (print queue). If the printer does not complete the print job because it is off-line or the print spooler fails, the print jobs stay in the print queue and it becomes backed up.

Clearing the print queue
1. Click Start, click Settings, and then click Printers to open the Printer folder.
2. Double-click the Printer to open the print queue.
3. Click Printer in the menu.
4. Select Pause Printing if it is not already selected. This will stop all printing to the
printer.
5. Click Printer again and select Purge Print Documents or Cancel All Documents. Click Yes to confirm the action.
6. If there are any documents left in the queue, restart the print queue. Click Printer and then click Pause Printing to resume printing.
7. Click Printer again, then click Cancel All Documents or Purge Print Documents.
8. If there are still documents in the queue, restart the computer.

My wife also pressed and held down the power button on the printer. This worked to clear the print queue.

Hot key "Unformatted Text" in MS Word

2007-03-30T15:16:00.003-07:00

Sometimes I like it when I paste things into MS Word and it retains all the formatting. Many times, I would rather it just paste it as unformatted text so I can make it merge with the rest of the doc.

Using MS-Word 2003, this is what I do so I can make Ctrl+Shift+V map to the Paste Special\Unformatted text.

Copy something off your browser with formatting.
MS-Word Tools\Macros\Record New Macro...
- Name macro PasteUnformatted
- Click the Assign Macro to Keyboard. Press Ctrl+Shift+V. Press Assign.
- Go to Edit\Paste Special. Choose Unformatted Text
- Click the Stop Button

View and/or edit the macro from the Tools\Macros\Macros... menu item
Select PasteUnformatted and click the edit button. It should look something like this.

Sub PasteUnformatted()
'
' PasteUnformatted Macro
' Macro recorded 3/30/2007 by Rich Alger
' this pastes the contents on the clipboard with no formatting
'
Selection.PasteAndFormat (wdFormatPlainText)
End Sub

See Paste Unformatted Macro

Once you are done you can use the Ctrl+Shift+V hot key to quickly paste in unformatted text.

UPDATE 2008-08-19
The last several times I had to do this, I always have to edit the macro and make sure it says wdFormatPlainText

UPDATE 2010-05-10
I was referring to this to get this to work in Outlook 2007. I just found that Ctrl+Alt+V brings up the "paste special" dialog box. You can arrow up and press enter. No need for a macro anymore. It works the same in Word 2007. "Alt, E, S" works in Word and Outlook 2003.

For other applications that do not have paste special you could use an application like PureText

Disable new mail notifications in Trillian

2007-03-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am setting up a new PC and could not remember how to disable trillian from notifying me when a new email comes.

For Trillian Basic 3.1 build 121: Trillian\TrillianPreferences... menu.
Advanced Preferences
Automation
Uncheck Mail: New Mail

Google Maps Traffic

2007-03-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

I first started using online traffic data to choose my driving home route. I commute from El Mirage, AZ to Tempe, AZ. At the end of 2005 I started using Google Earth. We were experimenting with it at work and considering buying an enterprise solution from them. We figured out how to make an overlay using the graphic at ADOT onto the Google Earth surface.

That worked quite well. The biggest problem I had with it is that it took 45 seconds or more to load Google Earth and to view the overlay. After a while, I stopped using it.

I then tried using traffic.com. I was intrigued by its stated ability to accept a route and email me if that route was too congested. I found that there were too many false positive reported and I was not always leaving work at the exact same time each day. I stopped using it too.

I had seen yahoo's traffic but the little dots didn't stand out to me.

A few months ago, I tried maps.live.com. It shows me stripes like ADOT does. Yet the stripes are only partially opaque, so you can see the street names underneath. It shows accidents, which is the real decider if I should go one way or another. I am able to create a url specifying the exact location and turns traffic on. I use this bookmark to see traffic every day. The final bonus it that is loads fast. It is up in about 7 seconds. Often I have to refresh it once to get the traffic to show, but that is real fast!

In about 10 - 15 second of looking at the image, I can tell which route to take. I can see any accidents and the resulting backup.

Yesterday, Google maps announced that they have traffic on their site. The most interesting part of their implementation is their coverage. They have data for the Loop 101. I do not know where they get this data from. Allpointsblog.com hasn't found out yet either. I have not been able to find it from ADOT. Another thing I noticed is that Google displays data I few minutes later than Microsoft.

Firefox Settings and Windows Start Up

2007-01-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

I like Slimbrowser. I have used it for years , mostly for a tabbed Internet Explorer. I recently got a new computer and decided to try FireFox as my primary browser.

I wanted it to behave more like Slimbrowser. I found the following FireFox add-ins,
Tabbrowser Preferences
LastTab
Duplicate
Faster Fox
Restart FireFox

My wife still uses Internet Explorer as the primary browser. There are enough sites out there that still do not work well with FireFox that I still want it too. I wanted to be able to open GMail with FF. I created a shortcut on my desktop with this target ("C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" http://mail.google.com/mail/)

I also was looking to reduce the number of programs running as well as quicken the Windows XP Home Edition login. I found MSConfig.exe. Just run from Start/Run and adjust it. My wife used Windows Live Messenger. I found in MsConfig where to disable its start up. I then could add a short cut to it in the StartUp folder of my wife's login. That way it starts up for her but not for me and the kids login.

What does "non-commercial use" mean?

2006-09-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

Google Maps Terms of Use, "For individual users, Google Maps, including local search results, maps, and photographic imagery, is made available for your personal, non-commercial use only. For business users, Google Maps is made available for your internal use only and may not be commercially redistributed, except that map data may be accessed and displayed by using the Google Maps API pursuant to the API terms and conditions" (paragraph 1)

Google Maps API Terms of Use, "The Service may be used only for services that are generally accessible to consumers without charge" (section 1.4)

The most confusing part comes when I look at the Google Terms of Service. "The Google Services are made available for your personal, non-commercial use only. You may not use the Google Services to sell a product or service".

What does "non-commercial use" mean? The most concise definition I can find is "Non-commercial means that you are not getting compensated in any form for the products and/or services you develop..." (Intel® Software Development Products).

Is this the definition of non-commercial? "Non-commercial means that you are not getting compensated in any form for the products and/or services you develop. You cannot use the service to assist you to develop products and/or services that you are compensated for". This definition would mean I cannot use Google to search for programming references.

Perhaps non-commercial means, "you many not use this service to sell a product or service". By this definition employees of the company I work for cannot use Google Maps to sell our products or services. On the other hand, I can use Google Search to find programming references and tutorials.

How to Setup nUnitAsp for Unit Testing

2006-06-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

After months I finally set up my first working unit test using nUnitAsp. It is great because it has classes that mimic the ASP.net web controls.

I ran into a bug that was hard to reproduce. After a day or so of exploratory testing I reproduced it. I did not want to lose this knowledge to I decided to try to implement a testing suite to document it with a test. (See “Code the Unit Test First”)

After looking into and trying to implement several blends of unit testing frameworks, I chose, nUnitAsp which extends nUnit so that you can easily test web controls. I also installed TestDriven.net so I could more readily run tests from VS 2003.

This article was the guide that produced results for me, “Advanced Techniques with NUnitAsp” by Tim Stall. I only followed the simple example and then adapted it to reproducing my bug.

I downloaded nUnitAsp version 1.5.1. I ran the nUnit 2.2.0 installer included with it at \NUnitAsp-1.5.1\bin. I installed TestDriven.net-2.0.1605_Personal.

Now that I have coding the unit test first, I can fix the bug.

The good, fast and cheap triangle

2006-05-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

The good, fast and cheap triangle.

I saw this on Bernie Mac last night. His general contractor to add on a spare room showed him this triangle. It rings true. There are some that think you can have all three.

Pictometry in Virtual Earth

2005-12-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

I found out from All Points Blog that http://local.live.com went live today (was virtual earth).

I like the new features. You can link to a bird's eye view of some locations, like the statue of liberty. I also like zooming in by drawing a box.

I would like them to get the tiles to load more consistently, and improve their geocoder results.

Idiomatic Pop up Dictionary

2005-10-19T09:53:00.003-07:00

Update 2008-05-14. This web site no longer has this functionality that I can tell. The principle still continues. I updated the idiomatic URL. For my future reference the name of the article is "The Myth of Metaphor" by Alan Cooper June 1995 Originally Published in Visual Basic Programmer's Journal. The PDF is in my Gmail account.

Look at http://www.emedicine.com/derm/topic138.htm now highlight a medical term you don’t know. It will pop up a window and look the word up for you. You may need to turn off your pop up blocker. It must use JavaScript to do this. It reminds me of the Wikipedia feature of trillion. It will put a dotted line underneath a word. When you mouse over it, it open a tool tip like window and go an look it up in Wikipedia.

This is a great example of idiomatic design. My wife just happened to come across it. She was highlighting a word (I guess to look it up) and the pop up did it for her. She will never forget this feature and no one had to teach it to her. It was so useful that she shared it with me and now I will never forget it.

Stay Extreme

2005-10-18T02:51:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling burnt out. I just went on a long weekend vacation to Disneyland with my four oldest kids. I am staying up late and started looking at blogs of those that share my interests. I found innovation fatigue and posted a comment. I found that Jon Conradt is also interested in agile development. He mentioned Scrum. I am not sure what it has in addition to XP.

I am going to initiate a 15 minute meeting every day this week. I am determined to use my wings.

Walk away from your desk

2005-10-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

In Nov 2002 I was laid off. After a couple of weeks I was hired to finish the last six weeks of a contract. This was my first introduction to extreme programming. My supervisor was very into it, especially the small iterations. I was amazed how much I accomplished.

I worked by myself. I occasionally (every 2 or 3 days) be able to check in with my supervisor. Sometimes I got frustrated. It was then I realized that I needed to walk away from my desk.

Not that this is a great new revelation, but to me it was a breakthrough. I had read The Origin of Personas some time before. I realized that when I was walking, I was working! I was not loafing. Of course there is a line you can cross, walking a 10K for instance. This is where personal character comes in. Steve McConnell said personal character is related to superior software.

Do the simplest...

2005-10-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

I did the planning game writing several user stories on note cards. This took some hours. After a while I was itching to start designing and getting the most important ones done. I took two of them and added them to an implementation of Gemini I set up a couple weeks ago. I created a version for Oct 2005 and added the two user stories to it. I emailed a link of Gemini to my work mates and asked our director if I could sent it to the members of the vision team. I want to encourage participation from them.

I also created a stored procedure that reports on the usage of a couple key features of the web application. I want to find out who is using these features. I will invite them to participate in the development process.

Backup plans. I have worked out a system of backing up the source code I work on. We do not currently have a source code version control system. I created a backup folder on another set of disk drives to hold backups of the source code. These disks are backed up monthly. I created batch files to back up the source code. I set up monthly ones that will copy the source code several days before the scheduled disk backup. Do the simplest thing that could possibly work was my inspiration for this system.

I may be assisting another programmer this week. I will take this opportunity to practice pair programming.